Powerful symbol, weak in facts

John MurphySun Foreign Staff

GOREE ISLAND, Senegal - Standing in a narrow doorway opening onto theAtlantic Ocean, tour guide Aladji Ndiaye asked a visitor to this Senegaleseisland's Slave House to imagine the millions of shackled Africans who steppedthrough it, forced onto overcrowded ships that would carry them to lives ofslavery in the Americas.

"After walking through the door, it was bye-bye, Africa," said Ndiaye,pausing before solemnly pointing to the choppy waters below. "Many would tryto escape. Those who did died. It was better we give ourselves to the sharksthan be slaves."

This portal - called the "door of no return" - is one of the most powerfulsymbols of the Atlantic slave trade, serving as a backdrop for high-profilevisits to Africa by Pope John Paul II, President Bill Clinton and President
George W. Bush and a destination for thousands of African-Americans in searchof their roots.

More than 200,000 people travel to this rocky island off the coast of Dakareach year to step inside the dark, dungeon-like holding rooms in the pinkstucco Slave House and hear details of how 20 million slaves were chained andfattened for export here. Many visitors are moved to tears.

But whatever its emotional or spiritual power, Goree Island's real role inthe slave trade remains a matter of dispute, a contest between history and thepower of myth.

Despite the claims by Senegal's tour guides and tourism industry, GoreeIsland was never a major shipping point for slaves, say historians. No slaveswere ever sold at what is known as the "House of Slaves." No Africans everstepped through the famous "door of no return" to waiting ships, either.

"The whole story is phony," says Philip D. Curtin, a retired professor ofhistory at the Johns Hopkins University who has written more than two dozenbooks on Atlantic slave trade and African history.

First used as stopover by Portuguese sailors in the 15th century, GoreeIsland was bought for a few iron nails by the Dutch before being seized by theFrench and the British.

Although it functioned as a commercial center, it was never a key departurepoint for slaves, Curtin says. Most Africans sold into slavery in the Senegalregion would have departed from thriving slave depots at the mouths of theSenegal River to the north and the Gambia River to the south, he says.

During about 400 years of the Atlantic slave trade when an estimated 10million Africans were taken from Africa, maybe 50,000 slaves - not 20 millionas claimed by the Slave House curator - might have spent time on the island,Curtin says.

Even then, they would not have been locked in chains in the House ofSlaves, Curtin says. Built in 1775-1778 by a wealthy merchant, it was one ofthe most beautiful homes on the island; it would not have been used as awarehouse for slaves other than those who might have been owned by themerchant.

Likewise, Curtin adds, the widely accepted story that the "door of noreturn" was the final departure point for millions of slaves is not true.There are too many rocks to allow boats to dock safely and a beach nearby thatwould have been the easiest place for loading ships, he says.

Curtin's assessment is widely shared by historians, including AbdoulayeCamara, curator of the Goree Island Historical Museum, which is a 10-minutewalk from the Slave House.

The Slave House, says Camara, offers a distorted account of the island'shistory - created with tourists in mind.

No one is quite sure where the Slave House got its name, but both Camaraand Curtin credit Boubacar Joseph Ndiaye, the Slave House's curator since theearly 1960s, with promoting it as a tourist attraction.

Ndiaye is famous in Senegal for offering thousands of visitors chillingdetails of the squalid conditions of the slaves' holding cells, the chainsused to shackle them and their final walk through the door of no return.

"Joseph Ndiaye offers a strong, powerful, sentimental history. I am ahistorian. I am not allowed to be sentimental," says Camara.

That said, Camara believes Ndiaye has played an important role in offeringthe descendents of slaves an emotional shrine to commemorate the sacrifices oftheir ancestors.

"The slaves did not pour through that door. The door is a symbol. Thehistory and memory needs to have a strong symbol," Camara says. "You eitheraccept it or you don't accept it. It's difficult to interpret a symbol."

Still, when historians have questioned the significance of the island andthe Slave House, they have been met with accusations of revisionism.

The respected French newspaper Le Monde published an article in 1996refuting the island's role in the slave trade; Senegalese authorities werefurious. Several years ago at an academic conference in Senegal, someSenegalese accused Curtin of "stealing their history," Curtin said.

Despite widespread doubts of Goree Island's role in the slave trade, theUnited Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, which in 1978designated the island a World Heritage site, actively promotes the Slave Houseas an important historical location.

"We are certain that the House of Slaves had something to do with the slavetrade," says Edmond Moukala, a spokesman for UNESCO in Paris.

Some tour books, however, have begun warning visitors about the questionssurrounding the island, including Lonely Planet's West Africa guide book,which concludes: "Goree's fabricated history boils down to an emotionalmanipulation by government officials and tour companies of people who comehere as part of a genuine search for cultural roots."

None of the controversy appears to have diminished the island's attractionas a tourist destination. The ferry that carries visitors from Dakar to theisland is regularly packed with tourists and school groups.

The island is a remarkable peaceful community with narrow streets, colonialhomes, baobab trees and not one car in sight. Many of the island's 1,200residents have come to depend on tourism, hawking African paintings,sculptures and necklaces, giving tours to visitors and running small seasiderestaurants and hotels.

At the House of Slaves, the visitors' book is crowded with entries bytourists expressing a powerful mix of anger, sadness and hope at what they'veexperienced - no matter if it is fact or fiction.

"The black Africans will never forget this shameful act until kingdomcome," penned a visitor from Ghana.

"My heart is sad," wrote a Canadian tourist, "This is the place I feel myancestor's pain. But we are a beautiful, resilient people and we will stand."